Jimmy has always been biased so I personally won't trust his words but the way this is playing out, its like James somehow revealed the pass codes to the WMF Nuclear launch codes or something...did he?
A board made up to govern a community driven project filled with people no one voted in decides to give a community selected board member the boot for reason which they supposedly 'cannot' reveal and they wonder why the community is pissed off at them?
The FAQ on James removal gives nothing away and the community will only accept an answer which they deem truthful, we have yet to get one.... You only dismiss board/staff members when they waste away millions on something which has no future (which they didn't) or if they steal..sorry but a BoT member talking to staff about an ongoing issue is not good enough a reason for removal..We will be celebrating 15 years of wikipedia soon, 9ish of those years were great, the last 6 years felt like an ongoing battle between the community and the bloated staff/board with forced changes to the wmf wikis and unexplained hiring, firings and wastage of money which we do not have...
Atleast those that have been in the project for a while now would fondly remember the good times on the wikis, back when bureaucracy did not play any part in changing the direction the project was heading.....so now i ask the one question we all have been pondering....When are the Google-ads coming?
On 1/10/16, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
On January 8, 2016, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees issued "a short statement on recent comments by James Heilman". For completeness' sake, I'm pasting the text of that statement into this thread.
Recently, James Heilman wrote, regarding his removal from the Wikimedia Foundation Board: "It had in part to do with me wanting there to be public discussion on our long term strategy." [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=ne... &oldid=698553023 diff].
I wrote the following statement, which has been agreed to by the entire board at the time, names below:
"The removal of James as a board member was not due to any disagreement about public discussion of our long term strategy. The board unanimously supports public discussion of our long term strategy, has offered no objections to any board member discussing long term strategy with the community at any time, and strongly supports that the Wikimedia Foundation should develop long term strategy in consultation with the community."
- Dariusz Jemielniak
- Frieda Brioschi
- Denny Vrandecic
- Patricio Lorente
- Alice Wiegand
- Guy Kawasaki
- Jan-Bart de Vreede
- Stu West
- Jimmy Wales
I would like to add to this, speaking for myself only, that the loss of trust that I felt in James was in no small part due to this kind of statement on his part, in which the thinking of other board members is being misrepresented to the community and to the staff. James apologized to the board for certain actions which he has chosen not to share with the community, which is his right. He asked for a second chance, and the board declined to give it. My own preference, as expressed to him repeatedly, is that he live up to the values of honesty and transparency that are core to our community, and certainly that he not continue to misrepresent what happened.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:31, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/698800759/698801403.
Obviously a single mailing list thread can't and won't capture all of the information related to this removal, but it seemed remiss to omit an official statement from the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees on the subject, especially when we have already included a number of other statements from individual trustees and the Board in this thread.
MZMcBride
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